Congress takes the ball on Obama's playoff promise

By Robert Farley
Published on Thursday, March 26th, 2009 at 6:44 p.m.

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Gator fans cheered during the BCS championship game in January. But will they cheer a playoff system?

This promise grew out of a softball question at the end of a 60 Minutes interview on Nov. 17.

A smirking Steve Kroft asked what Barack Obama would do, as president, to get a playoff system in college football.

"This is important," Obama said, in mock seriousness. "I think any sensible person would say that if you've got a bunch of teams who play throughout the season and many of them have one loss or two losses — there's no clear, decisive winner — that we should be creating a playoff system. Eight teams. That would be three rounds to determine a national champion. It would add three weeks to the season. You could trim back the regular season. I don't know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this."

"So I'm going to throw my weight around a little bit, I think it's the right thing to do," Obama said. Then he smiled broadly.

Honestly, we didn't think this one would come up so soon, certainly not in the middle of March Madness, not to mention the ongoing economic recession. But the idea is starting to get some traction in Congress. See Promise No. 306 for our new update.